In the US.
My daughter just moved into an apartment where the only TV service is Direct TV. She didn’t mind because she isn’t interested in TV. However, when she went to sign up for Internet access AT&T sold her a DSL account but it will not work. Several hours of tech support and 2 modems later, the conclusion from the AT&T tech is that the phone system in the apartment complex, which may have been installed by Direct TV, is blocking her access. The people at the apartment complex office have no clue. Most residents get their internet on the same contract as the Direct TV-ironically AT&T service. So they aren’t much help. My questions are: has anyone heard of a similar situation? Is it possible/likely that Direct TV somehow is blocking DSL service? I know that DSL service has to be copper to the house. But the local phone company agreed to provide the service and the online tech says he can see the modem when it is plugged in at the apartment. It is just no outgoing packets go anywhere. I am quite puzzled.
Anyone have any ideas?
If the tech at the remote office can indeed see your modem, there is nothing wrong with the signal. When the modem is turned on you should have 4 green lights: Power, DSL, Internet and a light for the computer connected to the modem.
If the first 3 are on, you are definitely getting a DSL signal from the phone company, and the problem is most likely that your computer is not set up properly to log on to the modem.
You probably need to call back their tech support and go through the troubleshooting steps until they can either get it working or send out another tech to fix it onsite.
Make sure your tcp/ip settings are set to obtain an ip automatically (assuming you have a dynamic ip address and not static). Are you plugged directly into the modem or are you using a wireless router?
These are basic things you’ve probably already checked, but just in case you haven’t…
Is the direcTV box plugged into a phone jack to order movies and the like? If so, it needs a filter.
This was a common problem in the olden days.
This would be the first thing I’d check: Only the DSL modem can plug directly into a phone jack. Everything else needs a DSL filter.
DSL filters keep the DSL audio off the voice lines.
I would also ask this question at the forums at DSL Reports (dot) Com. They actually have people who work for the phone companies and cable companie so they can tell you what is going on. Once they even gave me a bypass phone number to talk to the highest level of support right away
Sometimes installers are lazy. My friend works for comcast and when wiring up peopels houses when he has to go out to the box sometimes it is not labeled correctly or at all. So he just turns everybodys on, and they do not even know. Somehting similar could have happened. I know when I got my TV hooked up the Direct TV guy told me Comcast thinks they own all the Coax cables so they just do whatever they want. I have broadband internet and HDTV I could not run both through one cable so another one had to be run
Not really. The filter is usually a low pass (and sometimes band pass) device that limits the upper frequencies sent by analog devices on the line. Most phones, etc, will transmit stuff outside the voice band, which isn’t usually sent through the voice network by the phone company. It doesn’t make any difference to the phone company hardware. Unless, of course, there is another device like a DSL modem utilizing those upper frequencies. In that case, extraneous signals and echoes and device noise interfere with the DSL connection.
A few filters get rid of incoming noise from the low end of DSL frequencies, but most modern phones won’t pass that stuff anyway, since it’s outside the voice range. In any case, the frequencies are too high to be very loud to most people.
Is the phone service provided by Direct TV digital or through cable? In that case, it won’t work.
We signed up for digital phone service with AT&T, and then wanted to move from dial up (this was a while ago) to DSL, also with AT&T. When I checked availability on-line, it always told me that I couldn’t do it. I finally figured out that the digital phone service was a problem, so I had AT&T yank out the digital line, got a normal analog line put in by PacBell (before they bought and became AT&T) and then got AT&T to turn on the DSL.
Since you are at the mercy of what the apartment complex put in, you might be stuck with Direct TV internet, unless you can get your local telco to turn on analog service to your apartment only.
Filters have nothing to do with your problem.
That makes no sense. There is zero difference between a digital phone line and and analog line. Copper wire goes from your house to the telco CO, where it hits the DSLAM, which is the other end of a DSL connection. There are a number of things that could have fixed your problem, but changing phone lines isn’t one of them (and what they did for you was simply plug in the wires coming from your house into a different box/card at the CO, or in the case of a newer CO, simply changed some software settings).
Secondly, DirecTV doesn’t offer phone service, and if the OP got phone service through cable, there is no way the phone company would or could provision the line with DSL, because the OP wouldn’t have an phone number with the phone company. Since the OP already has a dsl account, we can rule out any availability shenanigans.
Now, the OP hasn’t given us enough info to troubleshoot the actual issue – there are several things it can be aside from filters. But the OP can’t do most of them. Filters are a common and easily fixed issue. I know this because I used to do DSL support for SBC before they merged back into the death star.
If it is indeed the building’s phone system, that’s easily tested. Take the modem out to the interface box and plug the modem directly into the line coming from the phone company. See if the modem syncs. If so, it’s an internal wiring issue (and not really the phone co’s problem). If not, it’s a bad DSLAM card or they have repeaters installed on the loop, or myriad other issues that they will find and fix.
If it is an internal wiring issue, a lot of times there is something noisy on the line, or a bad insulator somewhere, or even some sort of filter installed (usually for a stupid reason). Squirrels and other rodents are also common troublemakers, as they like to chew on wiring.
If the modem is actually syncing up in the apartment, then it’s a networking issue. Usually tech support is pretty good about fixing that sort of thing.
Without a lot more info, it’s difficult to actually troubleshoot the issue. But you managed to provide both disinformation and incorrectly eliminate a common and easily fixed problem with a new DSL setup.
Oh yes: OP should also make sure there isn’t a filter installed on the dsl modem cord. This happens more often than one would think, and sometimes the modem will still sync up.
ETA: Also, I am 99% sure that this is a networking issue, since the OP says the modem syncs and they can ping it.
The OP said that DirectTV put in the phone service. Why would they put in POTS? I am fairly sure that the AT&T local phone service I got did not go to the central office - I am absolutely sure that it did not go on copper wire, because a special connector was installed in my house. It might have been through cable - AT&T might have owned Comcast at the time, or it might have been something else. Before I left Bell Labs there was a secret project which I could term wireless to the curb. (That was 15 years ago, so not so secret any more, and dead for sure.) In any case, with a different route to whatever CO it went to, it was not surprising DSL wouldn’t work.
You’d think so, wouldn’t you? Are you sure that DirectTV doesn’t have a co-marketing agreement with someone, to be competitive with all the other TV providers who offer bundles? I have Dish, and have never noticed one, but the OP said
In fact, it seems that Internet access comes from AT&T for most people, so I assume cable.
When I got my SBC DSL kit the filter instructions were very clear. DSL seems pretty robust to me, in the larger sense. Back before we switched we had our DSL on my wife’s work line, which had some major connection problems up on the pole, which we only got SBC to do anything about when the customer service rep, talking to us on that line, could hardly hear us for the static. The DSL dropped out a couple of times a day, but still more or less worked. Would a filter problem really kill it?
I just guessed that the first thing a tech would suggest is to make sure the fliters are in place, and not randomly say that the building phone system is blocking DSL. Defective parts are always a possibility, but I also supposed that this was tested for. There could be other things interfering - my father-in-law had big problems with his home alarm system.
But the whole phone system situation seems pretty odd. And I will agree that if the OPs daughter didn’t check the filters, and possibly remove anything connected to the phone line except the DSL, she should right away. But someone should have told her to do this already before blaming the phone system.
Thanks for everyone’s replies! I agree that this is almost certainly a networking issue. Just a puzzling one. I talked to my daughter again and confirmed that a) she doesn’t have Direct TV at all, no other devices are connected to the phone line. b) when she turns on her modem (she has tried 3, two from ATT and one I provided) and all modems sync up-4 green lights. However, no internet service out. She tried several times with her Mac running Snow Leopard. She even tried her old XP laptop. Same result. She configures with DHCP. She never even gets a valid IP address on her WAN side (it is stuck on 192…) The techs had walked her through the setup several times. She called and wouldn’t go away until ATT promised to send out a tech to get her DSL working. I plan to make the treck over there tomorrow night and see the setup myself. Perhaps there is something visually obvious but hard to describe.
thanks for the comments and experience.
As I mentioned in another reply, there are no other devices on the phone line in the apartment. She doesn’t have Direct TV or a landline phone.
The phone system in the apartment is probably perfectly normal, it is just my understanding that is odd. As I understand it, Direct TV and ATT teamed up to offer service to the apartment complex and it has been that way since the place opened. Apparently you can buy services separately (ie just phone or just TV) but almost everyone seems to take the manager lady’s advice and purchase the bundle. Whether that bundle implies and physical connections between the two services I don’t know. I don’t know how internet service is provided in the bundle. I don’t use Direct TV but I remember reading that the downlink came from the satellite and the uplink went out a phone line. Whether that is what happens here I don’t know. My daughter, to her credit, isn’t interested in buying something she isn’t going to use. So she went for DSL and ignored the bundle and the marketing droids that came with it.
Curiouser and curiouser. Here is an AT&T Direct TV bundle I found, but it appears to only have DirectTV billed on the AT&T bill, and seems like an option for those who (like me) despise cable. They didn’t buy a high Google result for it, and they never advertise it.
Is your daughter in the middle of nowhere or something? The DirectTV page had a link for Hughes, which provides satellite Internet service. But that is expensive and slow, and if your daughter could even theoretically get DSL I doubt very much that is what the other people have. This page advertises another satellite internet provider for those who cannot get DSL. I found a page with people very angry at the bundle, but it was all billing, nothing about it not working.
Can she find out what type of Internet service everyone else has? Is it cable?
I wonder of the apartment house got a nice kickback for pushing the bundle.
She has DSL. You don’t need an activated phone line for DSL, only the copper, and if there are phone jacks in the apartment, she has copper.
10 bucks says it’s a password issue, since ATT DSL uses PPPOE.
I just got back from her apartment. You may win your bet.
The DSL is working fine. She is using the ethernet port on the modem (a Motorola RoadRunner. tiny little thing nowadays) The problem is the DNS service. She can’t resolve an address. We tried Snow Leopard and XP. Neither worked. The same machines work fine down at the coffeeshop.
The computer connects to the modem config page. So it is communicating (using an IP address of course) with the modem. All settings are good. The diagnostic log says everything passes except for DNS. The ATT DHCP is successfully populating her network settings with DNS addresses. But it won’t work.
My guess is that her username/password is bad. To make that harder, ATT uses a default username/password that gets you only to their server. That is in firmware. It doesn’t work either.
She can ping IP addresses. She just can’t resolve any addresses. Cycling power on the computer and/or the modem doesn’t help.
Anyone have a clue as to how a DNS client doesn’t work?
I have seen it on other computers and other situations, but they always have cleared up on their own. This situation has been going on for a week.
I don’t want to insult your intelligence, but did you try using Google’s DNS service: 8.8.8.8 or any other open DNS servers? I understand it probably won’t work if you don’t have actual access to the Internet because you haven’t gotten the account setup yet, but it’s worth a shot.
Remember that, if your modem is a router, you have two different problems with the DNS. The DNS on the router has to be from the ISP, while the DNS on the computer is most likely going to be the same as the local IP for the computer, but setting it directly to the DNS server on the router should still work.
I know these are common things to think of, but it’s all I can think of.
ETA: I also know of some malware that can do this. The easiest way to test this is with another computer, or a LiveCD. And check the hosts file.
thanks! good suggestions.
No I didn’t try another DNS service. That is a good idea. I use Google DNS here at my house, but I didn’t try it at her apartment. After all, the bellsouth DNS addresses are clearly making it to the modem-I could see them and recognize them as bellsouth. I manually entered all the information (IP, Gateway, Mask and DNS) into the network config of the computer and that still didn’t help. Of course your suggestion is to use another DNS besides bellsouth. Good idea, didn’t try it. 
I am going to start another thread on DNS. It is a subject that I don’t understand, beyond the cartoons, and hence am suspicious and confused. If you wouldn’t mind, please help by contributing to that thread.
Thanks